


Jaquemart XII - In A Gallery of Shadows (ii.  gloaming)

by alanharnum



Series: Jaquemart [15]
Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:46:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alanharnum/pseuds/alanharnum





	Jaquemart XII - In A Gallery of Shadows (ii.  gloaming)

JAQUEMART  
by  
Alan Harnum

Utena and its characters belongs to Be-PaPas, Chiho Saito,   
Shogakukan, Shokaku Iinkai and TV Tokyo.

This copy of the story is from my Archive of Our Own page at http://archiveofourown.org/users/alanharnum/pseuds/alanharnum.

 

XII. In a Gallery of Shadows

ii. gloaming

* * *

"It's so nice to see you again, Tenjou-sempai. I hope you're not  
having trouble with math anymore."

"Huh?"

Miki's smile was still boyish, almost shy. "I tutored you a  
few times, if I recall correctly. That was how we met."

"Oh. Oh yeah." She looked around the second story of the  
gallery, really no more than a wide balcony which overlooked the  
ground floor, with paintings hung on the walls. "I was so sorry  
to hear about your sister, Miki. If I'd known..."

God, she thought even as the words left her lips, did that   
ever sound lame. He probably thinks you barely knew each other.  
Who are you to be offering him condolences so many years after it  
happened? You used to hate that: Oh, and what do your parents   
do? My parents are dead. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

"It was a long time ago," Miki said softly. Some distance  
away, Juri and Shiori stood looking at one of the paintings  
amidst a group of other guests. "And it's not as though I've   
lost her completely. I've got my memories, and..." He gestured  
with his hands as though to take in the entire gallery. "Now   
I've got this, for her."

"Yeah," Utena said, silently cursing the total ineptitude of  
her conversation. Now she knew how all those distant relatives and  
friends of the family had felt trying to deal with her. "It's   
nice."

"Come on." He touched her elbow, lightly, and led her away  
from Juri and Shiori, towards one of the corners of the gallery  
where the balcony curved with the shape of the wall. "Let me   
show you one of her pieces."

"What?"

"My sister's. Her sketches." He looked a little   
embarassed; Utena found herself relaxing in spite of everything.  
He was still cute as hell, and the years had only refined his  
good looks to a higher state; glasses suited him, emphasizing the  
soft blue of his eyes. "After she was gone, I found them while  
looking through her things. I never knew she did that kind of  
thing. When she was younger, she used to play piano with me, but   
then she stopped. I think it was a very private aspect of her   
life that she didn't let anyone else see."

The sketch was framed behind glass, and looked rather  
insignificant on the wall compared to the larger paintings. It  
was geometrical, almost to the point of looking like an  
architectural draft sketch, but had something queerly organic to  
it. Something like a serpent crossed with a subway train, twined  
around something that was either an apple or a globe or maybe the   
sun. Utena found it vaguely disturbing, but tried not to let   
that show on her face.

"I wasn't sure if I should ever show them to other people,  
you know, since Kozue never even showed them to me. So I carried  
them around with me and only looked at them in private. Then,  
when I came back to teach here, Akio-san--the Chairman--and I got  
to talking about Kozue, and the sketches came up somehow, and..."  
He smiled, a bit forced. "You can see the results around you."  
The smile vanished. "Kozue and Ohtori Kanae, Akio-san's fiancee,  
passed away within a few months of each other."

"Yeah. I heard from Juri. Really sad," Utena said vaguely,   
eyes trying to decipher the tangled symmetries of the sketch and   
discover some coherent meaning to it. Funny how he didn't seem   
at all bothered by the fact that Akio had been the one driving   
the car in the accident in which Kozue died. Into the sea; the  
body never found. That was what Nanami had said.

"The wisdom that brings an end to peace."

Utena started and looked at Miki. "What?"

He indicated the sketch. "That's the title. The Wisdom   
That Brings An End to Peace."

"Oh. Because of the snake and the apple?"

Miki looked cutely confused. "Snake? Apple?"

"You know. Tree of knowledge of good and evil? Adam and  
Eve?"

He seemed to think upon it for a moment, then laughed  
softly. "Kozue's sketches are like that; I remember Akio-san  
noting it when he first saw them. People see very different  
things in them; he said that what they see tells more about   
themselves than about the sketch."

"Oh? What do you see?"

He touched a finger to his lips. "Well, usually, it looks  
like an egg to me."

"You see an egg, I see a snake and an apple. What's that  
say about us?"

Miki shrugged. "I don't know. I teach math and physics,  
not psychology."

Utena smiled, and turned her gaze at last away from the  
sketch, suspecting that its inexplicably disturbing lines had  
burned themselves into her brain and would follow her even into  
sleep. "I guess even a genius like you can't be good at   
everything, huh?"

He coloured a little, but looked pleased. "No. I guess  
not."

"Good acoustics in here." The Ohtori Quartet had stopped  
playing Schubert and switched to another piece; something without  
the same dark sense of melody, more dissonant, acerbic to the  
point of sarcasm, and bitter, bitter. She guessed Shostakovich,  
but wasn't sure.

"Yes." Miki moved over to stand at the railing beside her,  
resting his arms on the smooth polished metal and gazing down at  
the milling crowd and the players on the stage. "They're really   
an incredibly talented group for a student quartet. Aiko-san has  
a beautifully pure tone."

Utena blinked and, for the first time, actually made a  
careful study of the quartet. "You don't mean--geez, it is."

"Wakiya Aiko, Suzuki Ichiro, Yamada Jiro, Tanaka Saburo.  
The Ohtori Quartet. I understand they asked Akio-san's   
permission to take that name when they formed in their first year  
at the Osaka College of Music, out of gratitude for the fine   
education they'd received at Ohtori."

"Wow. Small world." Utena listened carefully to the music,  
then nodded. "They are good. Really good."

"I've never heard anyone play in unison as well as Suzuki-  
san, Yamada-san and Tanaka-san. And Aiko's perfect as the first  
violin." He smiled, very distant for a moment, as though he  
perceived something in the music that she did not, some   
intimation of a higher world in the string-tones. "They'll go  
far." He crossed his arms on the balcony railing and glanced  
over at her. "Did you know Aiko-san well?"

"Not really. I mean, she was a friend of Nanami's, but   
Nanami and I never got along too well when I was here. I knew  
Suzuki and Yamada and Tanaka, too; they were just kind of...   
there."

"Nanami-kun was often a difficult person in the days when   
you were here," Miki said quietly.

"No kidding," Utena couldn't avoid muttering. Then, shamed  
at even that minor act of bitterness, she added, "But she's  
changed now."

"Oh? You two know each other? How is she doing?" he asked  
eagerly, his expression softening. "I haven't seen her since   
shortly after our graduation."

Utena cursed herself silently for the slip, then simply went  
with it. "Yeah, we see each other now and again. In fact, she's  
in town right now. Visiting her brother." She cast her gaze  
upon the crowd on the floor below as though searching for Nanami.  
"I know she's here tonight; I saw her when I came in."

"Nanami-kun has such a close relationship with her brother,"  
Miki said. His smile took on a sad edge. "She's lucky. I made  
so many mistakes with Kozue that I was never able to try and   
fix."

"Miki..." Utena hesitated, then put her hand on his  
shoulder. Wasn't that too familiar, given how they were supposed  
to have hardly known each other? But it was hard, so hard,  
especially when she could see that he was hurting.

He shook his head. "Forgive me for laying my burdens on you  
like this, Tenjou-sempai; we didn't know each other well enough  
when you were here for me to take such liberties."

"Hey, I don't mind." Sick at heart for all the lies, she  
squeezed his shoulder through the dark fabric of his suit jacket.  
"Any burden you want to lay on me, go right ahead."

She found his own warm hand laid suddenly atop hers on his  
shoulder, to her surprise but certainly not to her displeasure.  
"Thank you. That's very kind of you."

An agreeable warmth came into her cheeks. Miki had   
certainly been cute when she'd known him seven years ago, but  
always kind of in the way that she imagined a younger brother  
would be cute. Now he was grown up and very handsome, and it  
occured to her suddenly just how intimate a gesture like this was  
from someone whom she remembered as quite reserved with physical  
gestures. He must be lonely, she thought.

"Umm," she said intelligently.

Careful, Utena, some smarter part of herself told her.   
Remember that there are about a half-dozen good reasons that   
you're not all jumping to try and give Miki his memories back.

"It's just that I find it hard to share my feelings with  
people I feel really close to," Miki said apologetically. He  
took his hand off of hers; Utena removed her hand from his  
shoulder with both relief and regret. "With Juri-sempai, or  
Nanami-kun; it's easier for me to talk about Kozue or other  
things close to my heart with people I don't know so well.   
Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Aching in her heart for all the things she'd ever left   
unsaid to Anthy, Utena answered, "It should be. It isn't,  
always. It's an imperfect world."

"Yes," Miki half-whispered, with a certain note of darkness  
to it, "an imperfect world."

Anthy; she'd kept her deliberately past even the fringe of  
her thoughts all day. Now all the questions surrounded her   
again, jabbing like a swarm of mosquitoes: Where has she gone?   
Why did she go? What has she become? Is she coming here? What   
will you do when she arrives?

She realized the quartet had stopped playing; that a   
silence, contemplative and icy, had settled over everything. No  
conversation; no sound of walking; not even a stray cough.

Akio was walking through the crowd towards the stage,   
parting it like a blade sliding through a silk tapestry. He  
looked exactly the same (but then, how else had she expected him  
to look?): tall and perfect, clad in black and red, he moved with  
a smooth, stalking grace. All light and every gaze seemed drawn  
to him. 

She had forgotten. How beautiful he was. Beautiful enough  
to make you forget. To make you ignore. All your better   
judgement. All the signs.

The Morning Star. Also known as Lucifer. The star that was  
originally an angel. But chose. To become.

The devil.

Chose.

He strode like a lord. Like a prince, and the crowd gave   
him silent fealty. Her blood felt hot. Molten. Even after   
seven years, the remembered taste of his dark, slim lips came  
upon her like the ache of a scar. Such scars he left upon her.  
Upon them all.

The dream. The falling tower. Poor oysters, ripped and  
bloody. 

("I weep for you," the Walrus said: "I deeply sympathize."  
With sobs and tears he sorted out those of the largest size,   
holding his pocket handkerchief before his streaming eyes.)

Chose to become the devil.

How many times over the past seven years had she dreamt of  
him, remembering the feel of his body naked atop hers, waking  
sweaty and ashamed and aroused, hating herself so much that she  
wanted to die of it?

Oh, why hadn't she _seen_? Why hadn't she seen before it  
was too late to do anything more than go on, to play his game to  
the end?

He ascended the short flight of steps leading up to the   
stage. Heads turned to follow him, hers and every other one.

Because she hadn't wanted to, of course. She'd been so good  
at lying to herself, at not seeing. Not a fool, unless you could  
be a willing fool. That had been her; shoving the needles into  
her eyes with her own hands, for what? For those dark   
smouldering lips full of gentle burning, those long-lashed eyes  
that carried some old sadness, the mouth that curved so   
appealingly when he smiled? For a precious memory that had  
been nothing more than a lie?

There had, as he had said, never been any such thing as a  
prince. Never any such thing at all. 

Miki touched her elbow. He was thousands of miles away. A  
handsome young stranger in a suit and silver-framed glasses, eyes  
wide and innocent and blue like the sky; a soft, apologetic   
voice.

"Tenjou-sempai? I have to go make my speech now. It was   
nice to see you again. Maybe we can talk further afterwards."

She said: "I'd like that." Automaton. Her body and voice  
belonged to someone else, some other Utena from another universe.

His hand withdrew. He walked away, the sole moving figure  
in a statue gallery. Blind stone gazes fixed upon the fallen  
angel on the stage.

Miki descended the stairs to the first floor of the gallery.  
His steps were uncommonly loud. They echoed in the good   
acoustics.

Two people. Behind her. Look back and smile.

Juri and Shiori. A hand on either of her shoulders:   
Shiori's small, light grip; Juri's strong, gentle fencer's   
fingers. She realized, feeling the touches, that she was   
trembling, her hands gripping the balcony railing so hard they  
ached.

"Well," Juri said softly, "there he is."

"I hate him so much," Utena whispered. "I want to... I  
don't know. Run down there and stab him. Right through the  
heart."

"Really? You think he still has a heart?" Shiori said. She  
squeezed Utena's shoulder. Smiled. She had a very gentle smile.  
Old, somehow, and fragile. Like an antique vase, paper-thin   
china decorated with flowers.

Utena managed soft laughter. "I don't know. We'll have to  
see."

Shiori looked away, eyes half-closed, shyly pleased at the  
laughter. Utena was beginning to see just why Juri could love   
her so much: there was something delicate about her that could   
draw a strong person like Juri. Something that made you want to  
guard her and keep her safe against the monsters of the world.

Miki had reached the stage. Akio, who had been speaking to  
the members of the Ohtori Quartet, turned to greet him. They  
clasped hands briefly. Miki moved to the standing microphone and  
spoke into it.

"Good evening, everyone. I'm Kaoru Miki."

His soft voice, amplified, reached every corner of the  
gallery, as though he were whispering directly into everyone's  
ear. Intimate. Like a friend sharing a secret.

"Thank you all so much for coming."

With hands still on her shoulders, Utena looked down. Faces  
in the faceless crowd: Mari and Akami, Tokiko standing with them  
but slightly apart. Ohtori Hoshimi, with the real Chairman's   
brother--the priest, she couldn't remember his name--beside her,  
his sour expression visible even at this distance. Nanami, by  
herself. Touga, by himself--no. Close enough to Nanami to watch  
her, probably without her realizing he was doing so. Utena  
smiled faintly, wondered if she should, wondered at his   
motivations; wanting to trust him, knowing she shouldn't.

"I'll be brief. I'm not fond of listening to long speeches,   
so I shouldn't be fond of making them, either."

Polite, automatic laughter swept through the crowd like   
quiet gunfire. 

"This gallery has my sister's name on it. At the eastern  
end of it, there's a small exhibit about her life. It wasn't a   
very long life. Perhaps not a very exceptional life, as the life  
of a young girl goes. But she was important to me; she was my   
twin sister."

He paused and took off his glasses, dangling them in one   
hand at his side as he covered his eyes briefly with the other.  
The soft, sharp intake of his breath was caught by the microphone  
and carried to everyone.

"Pardon me." He put his glasses back on. Utena felt Juri's  
hand on her shoulder tighten briefly, probably involuntarily, and  
fall away. Shiori's remained. "This gallery is located in a  
building with the name of another young girl on it, one who   
passed away at an age not much older than that of my sister.   
Ohtori Kanae, the daughter of the Chairman of the Board of Ohtori  
Academy."

Utena looked down into the crowd, seeking the faces of  
Kanae's mother and uncle. Hoshimi had her head bowed; the   
chairman's brother was awkwardly patting her on the back, sour  
expression gone, replaced by a gentle grief.

"People can sometimes become symbols. Sometimes while  
they're alive, but more often after they're gone. For me, my  
sister and Kanae-san are symbols of just how fragile each   
individual life is. How precious it is. How beautiful it is.

"How easily that beauty can be taken away."

His voice had dropped low, almost sepulchral. It seemed a  
great effort of will for him to speak. The faces in the crowd  
were appropriately sympathetic, sad along with him. She could  
imagine the thoughts: poor boy, to lose his sister so young. But  
doesn't he look brave up there, speaking like this? 

Her own thoughts were like unwanted guests: What does it say  
in that exhibit about how Kozue died? Does it mention the car?  
Does it mention that the one driving the car was the man   
_standing_ on the stage behind Miki, a tall and silent presence  
who seemed to be lending his radiance, lending the beauty that  
usually drew all attention to him, to the smaller, younger (but  
how much younger?) man at the microphone?

"But not entirely."

The note of hope was in his voice, sudden as a slap. Utena  
actually started; Shiori did the same. Juri just stood there,  
lips narrowed, face tight, green eyes showing unhappiness that  
revealed itself nowhere else on her body.

"Not entirely taken away. 'Non omnis moriar'--Horace wrote  
that in one of his Odes. 'I shall not wholly die'. He was  
speaking--singing--in that Ode of the enduring power of the  
artistic creation. Poetry, in his case, but I think it has  
broader applications than that. Art is an act of creation--  
perhaps more accurately, an act of transformation, of the making  
of one thing from many things. And what we create outlasts us.  
It lives on."

He paused. The crowd as a whole hung upon his words.

"It lives on." He let out a breath; the crowd let out one  
along with him. He smiled, wearily; the cadence of his words  
became relaxed, less urgent. "We've got a lot of art in here.  
Much of it is modern, donated by the Ohtori family from their  
private collections. There are some pieces from other eras. An  
extremely minor Michaelangelo. A slightly less minor Giordano.  
I believe there's a Rossetti or two around here somewhere, but  
I'm not sure exactly where--they're rather small, you see."

Again, the laughter; it stopped when he stopped his smile.

"There are also some pieces by my sister and Kanae-san.   
They both had artistic potential that never got to be fully  
realized. Look around. Enjoy the art; enjoy the wine and food;  
enjoy each other's company. As promised, there will be dancing.  
Memorials need not--should not--be entirely solemn.

"But first, I'd like to introduce Ohtori Akio-san, the  
Trustee Chairman of Ohtori Academy. He'd also like to say a few  
words."

Miki stepped back from the microphone. Akio touched his  
shoulder briefly, and stepped up.

He said more than a few words.

Or perhaps he said very few. It was hard to say, in the  
end. He opened his mouth and words came forth; beautiful words,  
slippery as fever dreams, impossible to hold the shape of in the  
mind. Words like the most delicate soap bubbles, full of   
shimmering rainbows, collapsing if you even dared look at them a  
little too hard.

He opened his mouth, and the only thing heard clearly was,  
"Good evening", and then the rest of it was only one long smooth  
flow in the mind, like a single word, a brief middle section of  
the longest (long to infinity), most beautiful word in the  
lexicon of human speech.

He spoke of transience. Of eternity. Of shining things,  
miracles, hope. He said things of seeming profundity which   
revealed themselves as paradoxical or nonsensical if actually  
thought out to their logical conclusions. He quoted Basho and  
Whitman and Auden. Tennyson and Takuboku. Plato and Confucius.  
At one point, he quoted something he claimed was from one of   
Mishima's novels, but almost certainly wasn't, and if it was, it   
was taken out of context and meant nothing of the original  
meaning.

It was cliched. Utterly predictable. Hackneyed, even. And  
yet, all the same, it moved the heart. Perhaps merely because   
his voice was so beautiful, so deep and strong and musical;   
perhaps because he genuinely seemed to believe all the things he   
was saying. The crowd fed upon his words, and then upon each  
other. One woman began to cry; then many of them were crying,  
men and women, boys and girls. Openly and unashamedly.

Utena's heart ached. Actually ached, as though it were  
bruised by the want to weep that she was forcing herself to keep  
under control. She wasn't going to let him do this to her.   
Wasn't going to cry for his false, lying words, no matter how  
beautifully he could speak them.

Next to her, Shiori had her face in her hands, and was  
sobbing like a lost child. Juri looked helpless, utterly  
helpless, trapped and hating to be trapped.

Just put your arm around her, Juri, Utena urged silently.  
As though Juri could hear her. As though if she hoped it enough,  
anyone could hear a silent plea. Down in the crowd she saw  
Nanami. Fists clenched at her sides. Face frowning. A clear  
circle around her. _She_ didn't look moved at all. Nearby,  
Touga--he'd moved a few steps closer to her during the speech--  
looking calm but moved enough by the speech not to seem  
suspicious.

Mari was crying too. Akami had her arm around her, almost  
possessively. She couldn't see Tokiko. Come on, Juri, she   
thought--come on.

All right, then. One arm around Juri. One arm around  
Shiori. Draw them both in, Shiori trembling like a leaf, Juri  
stiff and hesitant; both of them. Her dear friends.

Then, slip away; leave them with one another. Move, down  
the stairs, with Akio still speaking; try to ignore him. Block  
out the beauty. Build up a wall. Many walls. Think of the  
swords, savaging Anthy. How you pleaded with him (stupid, so  
stupid...) to save her. How he didn't.

The words were hollow and empty now. He was finishing up.  
Reaching a crescendo. An empty gesture. Finish with a   
quotation, of course. Some poet whose name she didn't catch.  
Step off the last stair. 

"He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,  
He kissed their drooping leaves;  
It was for the Lord of Paradise  
He bound them in his sheaves."

Towards the stage. Crowd parting before her. A blade  
through silk.

"O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,  
The Reaper came that day;  
'T was an angel visited the green earth,  
And took the flowers away."

Stupid lying sentimental bullshit, made even worse by the  
fact that he didn't believe a word of it.

"Thank you all. I see I've upset some of you. I'm very  
sorry for that. There is a time for grief, and a time for joy;  
let there be dancing now. Let there be no more tears."

The crowd assented. Obedient vassals all. The Ohtori  
Quartet struck up a waltz. Utena moved determinedly towards the  
stage, as dancing couples spun around her like satellites, never  
actually impeding her progress no matter how close they drifted.

Ten steps from the stairs leading up to the stage, someone  
seized her arm, hard enough to hurt.

"What are you doing?" Nanami hissed. "You're moving like a  
robot!"

Utena blinked. Shook her head. The rage settled. What had  
she been doing? Why had she been doing it?

(Lying hypocritical bastard I ought to get up there and cut  
your damn heart out not like you _have_ a heart any more damn   
you damn you...)

She shuddered and bit her lip; a tiny cry escaped her. It  
did not seem her own. 

Nanami went on, still gripping Utena's arm tightly. "I  
can't leave you alone, can I? If I do, you go off by yourself  
and... and..."

"I'm sorry, Nanami," she murmured. "I don't know what I was  
doing. What came over me. Thanks. I think you stopped me from  
doing something stupid."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Nanami muttered. She let  
Utena's arm go, leaving the white marks of her clutching fingers  
behind on the flesh. "Be careful. I can't always be looking out  
for you."

"What'd you think of the speeches?" Utena asked. Her mouth  
felt very dry. She very much wanted something to drink.

"Miki's was nice," Nanami said reflectively, smiling a   
little. Then her expression hardened. "Akio's was a bunch of  
sentimental, hypocritical crap, although he said it nicely."

"My opinion exactly," Utena said, nodding.

Nanami sighed. "Type Bs."

"Who get stuck on things easily."

"Wrong ideas."

"Bad thoughts."

They laughed, softly, together.

"Here they come," Nanami said.

Miki leading, Akio a step behind, then a few steps, then a  
few more, as he stopped to exchange words with various people.

"Hello again, Tenjou-sempai. Hello, Nanami-kun. It's been  
a while." 

"Hello, Miki-kun. I liked your speech," Nanami said, a   
little shyly.

Miki smiled and held out his hand to her. "Thanks. Want to  
dance?"

"Okay," Nanami said, looking slightly shocked.

"See you later, Tenjou-sempai," Miki said, as he led Nanami  
towards the central part of the gallery, which was serving as the  
dance floor.

Utena watched them go, grinning slightly. They looked cute  
together. 

"You," Akio said from behind her, "look as though you could  
use something to drink, Utena-kun."

She turned. He had a glass of wine in either hand. He was  
smiling.

Oh, God, how much she hated, loathed, him.

* * *

Out in the dim, quiet, empty hallway, the woman took off her  
glasses and wiped at her eyes with her fingers. She wished she  
had something better. The nearest package of tissues she knew of  
was in her car. In the glove compartment. Under the rental   
agreement. The car was olive. Such inconsequential details.  
Yet they insisted on coming to her.

She put her glasses back on. Her vision was still a little  
blurred. To one side of her stood a big rectangular window,   
taller than it was wide, with two dozen individual panes of   
square glass in its wooden frame, each a separate gazing into the  
night.

She wasn't sure what to do about her fingers. They were  
damp with her tears. She couldn't wipe them on her outfit; the  
fabric was pale enough that it would leave very obvious stains.

Her teeth ached, as though she'd held an ice cube between   
them for too long. Behind her, through the door, she could   
feel the rapt adoration and sympathetic grief of the crowd like  
the heat of a bonfire, but fading; he was finishing up his  
speech.

It approached obscenity, that a speech so full of trite   
sentiment and mawkish poetry could bring anyone, particularly   
her, to tears. She had returned yet again to take care of her  
own. To revenge, if need be.

Why, then?

(This time, I will go only to his grave. I will leave the  
flowers there. I will depart. I will go back to Kagoshima.   
Back to my kind, rich doctor husband. Back to luncheons with my  
friends and compliments about how well my looks have preserved   
themselves. Back to the elegant smoking of thin cigarettes on   
white verandahs. This time. I will not. Visit. Him.)

The sin, of course, was that Hoshimi was right: the vehicle  
had been what broke her. Not the cause. Not the fuel. How  
could she condemn the cause? How could she condemn the means, no  
matter how awful, if they were the only means? What right did   
she have to judge and pass judgement, coward and hypocrite that  
she was? Everyone was always willing to believe in "any means  
necessary", until those means touched what they loved, treasured,  
desired.

Before he had raised the lights, she had thought them  
spiderwebs. She hadn't even been to Mamiya's grave yet, since   
her arrival. The two thoughts came in sequence, incongruously;  
she thought them incongruous. A moment of reflection assured her  
they were not. Graves.

She took her glasses off again. Wiped her eyes again.  
Wondered again what to do with her fingers. With her hands. Her  
teeth ached. 

Someone softly cleared their throat. Not close. Not far.   
She looked up, replacing her glasses. She hadn't even heard  
footsteps.

The tall elderly man in the long grey coat, who stood down   
the hallway from her to the other side of the window, looked over  
at her with politely feigned casualness. "Would you like a  
handkerchief, madam?"

"I'd appreciate one," she replied after a moment.

He crossed the floor. White marble; a red rose pattern,  
geometric. His footsteps were barely audible. A quiet mover.  
Long white hair, thick for such an elderly man. He was dark.  
Caucasian. Handsome in youth, some of that still retained in   
age. Thin, thin as though the fine blade of the years had   
sliced the excess of his flesh from his body.

Silently, he offered her a handkerchief. Grey. A monogram:  
CLC. 

She accepted it and dabbed at her eyes. "Thank you."

He shrugged self-deprecatingly. "A gentleman offers a  
crying woman his handkerchief. It is merely the way of things."

She folded the handkerchief into a neat square and handed it  
back to him. Their hands touched, briefly. The tips of his   
fingers were warm and dry and faintly callused, like soft old   
leather. He returned the handkerchief to the breast pocket of   
his white dress shirt.

"Thank you," she repeated. "You're here for the opening of  
the gallery?"

"I appear to have arrived late," he said. He sounded rather  
apologetic, as though he had done her some personal offense by  
doing so.

"You might catch the last part of the Trustee Chairman's  
speech if you hurry," she said, indicating the closed side door  
leading into the gallery were a faint wave of her hand.

He smiled. He had small, neat, white teeth. "I think I'll  
appreciate your company more than his at the moment."

She mirrored the smile--not too small, not too big--and held  
out her hand to him. "Akino Tokiko."

"Leo Cano." He took her hand; for a moment, she thought he  
might stoop and kiss it, but then he merely shook it. A strong  
grip. There was power in him. He was very dangerous.

As their hands detached, his eyes caught upon the gold glint  
of her wedding band; it winked dully in the soft lighting of the   
hallway. The night-lighting. In the day, the hall would be   
brighter. Filled with students. She had been here before, in   
the day. Here before, in the night. Another hall had stood here  
before this one. And another before that. Perhaps another;   
perhaps he carried them with him. An infinite causal chain of   
burnings, linked back upon itself like a fiery bracelet. Each   
one born from the ashes of the last, born to burn and in burning  
give birth to the next.

Spiderwebs, in the darkness, they had seemed to be.

"Your husband is here tonight?"

There was a certain disapproval in the question. If your  
husband is here, why are you crying alone in an empty hallway?

"He's dead."

"Forgive me. That was inexcusably rude of me." He bowed  
his head, but did not close his eyes. Dark eyes. Profoundly  
dark, or perhaps it was only the lacking of the light. 

"Yes, it was."

He turned his head away from her and stared out the window  
at the inky night. The panes of the window were cut glass,   
translucent rather than transparent, and the view through them  
showed only black night without details.

"I apologize."

She smoothed her ruffled feathers. "I'll accept it. I   
assume you merely wondered where he was. Why I was alone. Why  
he wasn't here to offer me a handkerchief. Or a shoulder."

"The rudeness was the questioning, not the wondering.   
Please don't try and mitigate the offense."

"It's all right." She studied his thin, graceful neck; with  
his head turned to the side, muscle stood out like a column  
beneath the skin, vanishing down into the open collar of his  
shirt.

"Are you only recently widowed?"

You must be, of course, for after an appropriate and  
respectful amount of time has passed, it is time to take off the  
ring and move on.

"Nearing seven years now. Recent enough, for me."

He didn't say anything. She heard, faintly, the sound of   
the string quartet beginning to play a waltz tune. Something by  
one of the Strausses. Too sumptuous a piece for a quartet,   
really; it sounded thin and plaintive to her ears. 

"I never married myself. Not something I really regret.  
Even if I had found someone, business always took me all over the  
world. I don't even really have a place I would call a home."

"Where are you from, originally?"

"Havana. Cuba. But I haven't been back since I left.   
Shortly before the revolution."

She had guessed beforehand, from his accent. Something   
about the way he said "revolution" sent a chill down her back,  
like a sliver of cold steel. Yes. Very dangerous.

"What business are you in?"

Down the hallway, from around a corner lost in shadows, she  
heard playful, ancient childish voices, speaking with deadly  
seriousness.

careful now!

are you watching your end on that curve?

i said _careful_!

sorry, sorry... it's just very heavy...

can't you do anything other than complain?

stop chattering, you two--we've got to have this in place in  
time!

i know, i know...

what are you shouting at me for?

The voices faded like the trailing tendrils of a dream.

Had he answered her, and she had missed it, wrapped up in  
listening to shadows? Or had he not answered at all?

He stepped away from her and seized the brass handle of the  
thick wooden door leading back into the gallery. "Can you waltz,  
Akino-san?"

"I can."

He sketched a half-bow, smiled faintly (not showing his  
teeth), and held out his thin, long-fingered, powerful hand to  
her. "Will you?"

She placed her hand in his, lightly; he closed his fingers  
over it in a warm cage. "I will."

He pulled the door open and they stepped back inside.

* * *

"Who are you?"

Said the girl.

In the hospital bed.  
Wandering in the dark forest.  
Wearing a long-skirted uniform of soft greys and browns.  
Lying in the coffin.

Said the woman.

Walking through the flames.  
Standing amongst the stones.  
Bearing a sword.

"Himemiya Anthy."

She replied.  
She replied.  
She replied.  
She replied.

"Himemiya Anthy."

She replied.  
She replied.  
She replied.

"Do we know each other?"

Asked the girl.

With the tube in her arm.  
Who wore a skirt of leaves and had mud in her hair.  
Demurely and shyly.  
In a dry whisper, stirring the roses upon which she lay.

"I remember you again."

Said the woman.

In white.  
In white.  
In white.

"Remember me."

She.

Pleaded.  
Begged.  
Commanded.  
Demanded.

"Utena."

She said.

With relief.  
With joy.  
With desire.

THIS THEN IS

THE WISDOM OF THE SERPENT

WHICH BRINGS PEACE TO AN END

Now you shall know the depths of what you have done, that   
you have done it once again, and you shall grieve for it and be   
sick in your heart for your sin; you shall wish for your death,   
but it shall be denied to you. Your cries shall rend the air   
like the talons of the hawk, and there shall be no peace in any  
place for one such as you.

That is how it shall be.

Separateness cohered into singularity. A stained-glass  
window assembled itself from lead-edged blades of colour. A   
single possibility became the only reality.

Calmy, coldly, she drew the dagger of silver at her waist  
and aimed it at her own heart. A hard blow to her wrist from   
the edge of Kyouichi's hand struck it from her grip and left it  
glinting on the grass. He seized her tightly and pulled her  
against his chest, pinning her arms with his.

"What are you doing, Anthy?" He sounded incredulous and  
scared, shocked to the point where the speed of his response was  
even more surprising.

"Better I had died then and there," she said. "Better that  
I had never been born at all." No room existed at all for tears  
or grief; self-loathing pushed them, pushed everything, aside.  
"Nothing," she whispered. She did not struggle against him;  
there was not enough in her to struggle.

"What did you see? Why did you do that?" His voice was  
gentle, but by numbness rather than any calculated act of  
kindness. "I don't understand... I don't understand any of this  
at all."

You're running away again?

Clear, cadenced, vivid as though Utena stood next to her.

"I'm sorry, Utena. So sorry." She closed her eyes and  
simply let her body go limp, let Kyouichi's tall, strong body  
support her like a wall. "Nothing at all. I learned nothing at  
all, through all the long and anguished falling of the years,  
through all my time of pain; what was the point of any of it, if  
all I suffered while Bride to the Rose taught me nothing?"

He could not stand here forever, like a statue, holding her  
to him fom fear she would wound herself if he did not, holding  
her tight as though she were a part of himself. If she waited  
long enough, he would think her done. He would think the  
impulse passed. But it was no impulse, no rash act of the  
moment. He would let her go and she would snatch up the blade  
lying aglint upon the grass at the edge of the circle of stones,  
and plunge it into her heart.

You're running away again?

She had forgotten how much bigger than her he was. It was  
easy to think of him, think of any of them, as small, as though  
age and power had somehow made her into a giant. But now, as  
though perceiving it for the first time, she realized what a   
small woman she was, what a large man he was; his body hard and  
flat, sharp angles and smooth faces, hers soft, rounded...

("What shall we do, brother; how shall we go on living,   
after all of this?" / "How shall we go on? We have never  
lived before this, unless a flower can be said to live when  
it is only a seed." / "If we are flowers, then, what of our  
soil?" / "Adversity has been our soil, watered with your  
blood and the blood of your murderers, and the sun upon us  
was the light upon my blade when I slew them." / "But how  
shall we live, if we have never lived before?" / "We shall  
find a way, somewhere in the world, and if not in the   
world, at the ends of the world." / "I understand. From   
now on, you and I will help each other to go on living.")

"The prince," she murmured against Saionji's chest,   
breathing in deeply the sudden, startling, profoundly masculine  
scent of him. Sweat from his exertions in battling the Knight; a   
faint cologne; aftershave; plain soap. 

"What?" He was not holding her so very tightly any more,  
embracing her rather than restraining her. Until she had spoken,  
he had been saying things to her, awkwardly, the kinds of things  
you would say to comfort a child. Now he stiffened, suddenly  
conscious of her body against his, their shared living heat in   
this dead place.

"The prince mustn't love anyone," she said softly. "He  
can't. If he's to love everyone and fight for everyone, he can't  
love anyone. Can't remember anyone. From one deed to the next,  
endlessly. There is no happily ever after for the prince. Only  
a fall, if he ever stops long enough to love anyone."

"I don't understand," he repeated. Despaired. "I've never  
understood any of this... I just went along, wanting something  
eternal. Wanting to compete with Touga. I remember the last   
time I saw her before she went to face the final duel. How she  
said she was a fool. So proudly. How could she be proud of  
something like that? I knew in my heart I was a fool, and I was  
ashamed of it. _What did she know that I didn't_?" The last  
sentence, so full of confusion and pain that it seemed torn from  
him, pierced her like a blade.

"Don't speak." She raised her arms through the cage of his  
embrace and began to unbutton his shirt. He went rigid, and   
though his arms remained around her, he was now beyond any doubt  
the captured one.

"What are you doing?" he whispered, as she slipped a hand  
inside his now half-open shirt and caressed the smooth flesh of   
his pectorals. "Anthy..."

The circle of stones was gone. The hillside was gone. They  
were in a meadow of green spring grass, with dew on the blades.   
The silver dagger nestled amidst wildflowers. Dew on the blade.   
Tree branches spread above them. Green leaves, and green grass   
soft beneath her bare feet. Night sky overhead. The Dioscuri.   
The Twins. The twin lovers. His skin under her hands, warm; the   
beat of his heart, the flow of his blood.

"You want this, don't you?"

Lips. His lips, her lips, coming together. Who had moved  
first, him or her? Did it matter? It did not. No longer, as  
soon as one had responded to the other. They would forget   
together who had been the one to begin.

"I'm tired of being alone."

They lay down together on the green grass. Lips on lips.  
Her hands caressed his strong young chest. His palm on a   
breast, the fingers moulding, shaping, a gentle sculptor's  
touch. Dew against her bare back. He was above her, she was  
beneath him; the sky and the sea, and no land, no land in any  
place at all.

"I love you, Anthy," he said, hating himself for it, voice  
raw and inflamed. "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I do."

Is this truly what you desire? If it is, should you desire  
it?

She began to sob raggedly and pulled her hands away from  
his body. Confounded and suddenly as conscious as she was of   
what they were doing, Kyouichi shoved himself away from her and   
staggered to his feet, murmuring apologies and fumbling with the  
buttons of his shirt. One popped off and fell amidst the long  
bedewed blades of grass; he swore and dropped to his knees,   
searching frantically and futilely for it and still apologizing.

Tears running down her face and almost choking on grief,   
Anthy sat up and searched about for the dagger. She found it  
nearby, looking almost innocuous amongst the grass. Kyouichi was  
still looking for his button. With slow movements, like a cat  
stalking a bird, she picked it up. Held it, for a moment,  
examining. Forged all in one piece, it was, handle and guard and  
blade. The pommel was a fanged, snarling, wild-eyed face. She  
had not remembered that. Quietly, she resheathed it at her belt.

"I can't find my button. I can't find my damn button."

"Don't worry about it," she said softly, rising.

"Don't worry about it!" He turned on her, still on his  
knees, and a manic glint was in his eyes. "'What happened to  
your button, honey? Mom bought you that shirt last year on your   
birthday, right? I can sew a new one on for you.'" He slammed  
his fist against the earth. "That's what she'll say. But she'll  
_know_. I'll see it in her eyes. Whenever I look at her face.  
But she won't say anything. I--"

"Nothing happened," she said stiffly. "If anything had  
happened, it would have been my fault. I started it."

"And I let you," he snapped. The anger drained away from  
his face, and a kind of weary self-disgust rose in its place.   
"I... I can't deny how I feel. About you. Still. But...  
Wakaba..."

"Do you think that's it only allowable to love one person at  
once?" she murmured. "Perhaps for some, that's possible."

He gave up looking for his button and, standing up, fixed   
his shirt. The vanished button was the first one down from the   
collar. Not immediately noticeable. She wondered what had   
happened to his sweater. To the mirror of gold. To the car,   
white like pearl.

"You don't understand," he said softly. "Wakaba... I love  
her. Because she's so good and so kind and so loving, and she  
deserves my love so much. She reached out to me and found a part  
of me that I didn't know was still alive. But... you. I look at  
you and it's like I'm on fire. I _burn_ for you."

"I don't love you," she said. He did not look surprised.  
With calmness perhaps born from a profound striving not to break,  
he began to comb his hair back into place with his fingers. "I   
was selfish. In need of comfort. Of someone else's touch on my  
body. A lover's touch. I'm sorry."

"Shall we simply agree that we're both sorry, then, and   
leave it at that?"

She smiled humourlessly. "I think that will do."

"I find myself hoping that none of this is real," he  
murmured, taking a single step towards her. "That we're only  
dreaming. You're not responsible for your actions in a dream,  
are you? You do things, see things, that aren't real?"

She nodded. The stars turned, or the earth turned beneath  
their feet and created the seeming of star-turning. The Twins  
sank into the darkness of the west. The Double-Headed Axe hung  
overhead, surmounted by the Scales.

"Things that aren't real," she said.

"But if this is a dream, how do we escape it?"

"The hope of escape still exists. So long as some light  
comes through, even if it be only through the smallest crack."

"What?"

"Do you hear that?"

There came a sound like the hooves of the thousand horses  
who draw the chariots of the sun. The eastern sky began to turn  
pink and gold and crimson. Stars began going out as the first  
edge of the sun appeared and the light went rushing over the  
fields, the hills, the rivers, the circles of stones, the burning  
houses, the girls with the starving eyes, over the trees, over   
the blades of grass so that their dewdrops hung like spangled   
jewels. The Double-Headed Axe was washed away in a blazing   
torrent, the Scales carried with it into the blue sky-sea   
unrolling above them.

"That sound..."

Engines.

end of gloaming


End file.
